Thrift has been described as one of the world's leading human geographers[9] and social scientists, and is credited with coining the phrase soft capitalism as well as originating non-representational theory. He has been awarded several prizes and commendations recognising his research, including the Scottish Geographical Medal in 2009, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. Thrift sits on a number of advisory committees for the UK government and was a member of the ESRC Research Priorities Board. In 1982 he co-founded the journal Environment and Planning D: Society and Space[10] whilst serving as managing editor, since 1979, of Environment and Planning A.[11]

Thrift's early work was most readily associated with economic geography and the effects of capitalist mode of production on spatial relations, conceptions of time, and labour markets. Latterly, and controversially for early collaborators like Richard Peet, he moved towards poststructuralism with attention to subjectivity, representation, identity, and practice in Western societies. His work on time, language, power, representations, and the body has been influential, and it has been suggested that Thrift's career reflects and in some cases spurred substantial intellectual changes in human geography in the 1980s and 1990s.

Most recently he has written on what he terms non-representational theory, which stresses performative and embodied knowledges and is a radical attempt to wrench the social sciences and humanities out of an emphasis on representation and interpretation by moving away from contemplative models of thought and action to those based on practice. Thrift has claimed that non-representational theory addresses the "unprocessual" nature of much of social and cultural theory. Major themes within non-representational theory include subjectification, space as a verb, technologies of being, embodiment, and play and excess. Non-representational theory has provoked substantial debate within the field of human geography around the limits of the mediation of our world through language and how we might see, sense, and communicate beyond it.

Thrift has also edited and authored a number of textbooks, encyclopaedias, and primers in human geography.

In the financial year 2011–12, Thrift's salary rose by £50,000 to £288,000, a 21% increase over the previous year.[12] Some students claimed that the pay raise was unjustified in light of Warwick's performance in international university league tables. Their protests were rebuffed and in June 2013 when a pay rise of £42,000 (to £316,000) was announced, a small number of students again protested. The grounds were again that the raise went against university cutbacks to staff and student support/bursaries.[13] The most recent pay increase of £16,000, announced in December 2014, was again met with protests.[14]

On 3 December 2014 police used CS spray to tackle student protesters at the University of Warwick.[15] Thrift issued a written statement that denounced alleged violence by students.[16] This engendered a negative response among students, who responded by coining the "Thrift Off Campus" protest slogan.[17] A petition demanding that the University issue an apology to students received almost 3000 signatures.[18] This was followed soon afterwards by a petition calling for Thrift's knighthood to be rescinded, with over 600 signatures.[19] The latter petition attracted national and international news coverage.[20][21]

On the 6th February 2015 the University of Warwick Students' Union passed a motion of no confidence in Nigel Thrift.[22] The motion included statements that (i) "by overseeing the repression of the salaries of academics and teachers while himself and others received large pay increases is unjust and shows poor stewardship of the University’s finances" , (ii) "at no time had Thrift or the University publicly and explicitly condemned the brutality of police officers on the 3rd December 2014", (iii) "the suspension of Thomas Docherty for allegedly political reasons directly harmed any students he taught or supervised, as well as hampering staff relations".[23]

Thrift N (1981) "Owners time and own time: The making of capitalist time consciousness, 1300–1880" in Pred A (Ed.) Space and Time in Geography: Essays dedicated to Torston Hagerstrand, Lund: Lund Studies in Geography Series B, No. 48

Thrift N (1983) "On the determination of social action in space and time", Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 1: pp. 23–57